


when this house don’t feel like home

by and_hera



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Haircuts, Kissing, Nonbinary Character, Post-Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29077593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_hera/pseuds/and_hera
Summary: Simmons is a smart woman and hopes—no, sheknowsthat they’ll find Fitz.But—but— why is this sohard?or, Simmons and Daisy in space.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	when this house don’t feel like home

**Author's Note:**

> no i’m not “projecting” i just think that jemma simmons is a character of all time. anyway. what is a fic by and_hera on ao3 if it isn’t daisyjemma while fitzsimmons are canonically together (well, at least sort of)  
> this is messy and a Lot but i rly enjoy it. i think they did each other’s hair while they were in space <3 also daisy is nonbinary in my mind and uses she/her, they/them, and he/him pronouns all during different parts of this fic!  
> this Does discuss the events of 5x14! not in great detail, but it is certainly referenced.  
> title from curses by the crane wives, a very daisyjemma song. hope you all enjoy!

The first night on the Zephyr, Daisy wakes up the whole ship with her shaking. Simmons, as she’s running to comfort her best friend, thinks that she really needs to develop a soundproof wall system, because she can hear Daisy’s muffled cries through the walls. That would probably solve some issues back on base, too.

She runs in, and Piper and Davis are right behind her. They have a fairly big crew, but Simmons doesn’t trust (or know) the rest of them and none would be willing to investigate why Quake, the Destroyer of Worlds, is sobbing in her bed.

Simmons isn’t even sure herself until she hears Daisy muttering _Fitz, no_ , and _you don’t want to do this_. Piper stills beside her, and she notices Davis fidgeting with his wedding ring. She realizes that she’s doing the same with her own.

“I got this,” she whispers. “Go tell the crew that everything’s fine.” She’ll have to hurry with that soundproof system. “Go to sleep.”

“Aye-aye,” Piper says, because she’s faithful, and Davis follows her, because he’s good.

Simmons sits at the end of the bed, far from Daisy’s arms, and puts a hand on her calf. Daisy shoots up from her bed, fists out. Simmons remembers when Fitz woke her up after Maveth and she almost stabbed his eye out with the sharpest piece of wood she could find in the base. (She was sleeping with Will, but that didn’t mean she trusted that their little home _far_ away from home was safe. They both had weapons on them.)

“It’s me,” she says soothingly. “Dais, it’s just me.”

Daisy lets out a shuddering breath and flops down onto her back, staring at the top bunk above her. No one sleeps in the room with her, but the Zephyr has bunk beds anyway. Daisy still sleeps like she’s sharing with someone else. (Simmons hasn’t slept in a bed with her husband since their wedding night; after that they either were crashing in the lab or he was hurting Daisy or they were invincible and not really sleeping.)

“Was I yelling?” Daisy whispers, voice hoarse.

“A little,” Simmons says honestly. “I’m going to develop a soundproof system, I think. Just for all of us.”

Daisy nods. “Send it back to base, too. I bet Mack and Elena will appreciate it.”

“I will.”

Daisy takes a deep breath in through her nose and exhales through her mouth. Simmons still has her hand on Daisy’s calf and doesn’t plan on moving it any time soon; no one’s dared come close to her since Fitz died and she misses contact.

“You want to talk about it?” Simmons asks softly.

Daisy shakes her head emphatically.

“That’s okay,” Simmons says. “I know I’m not very good at advice.”

“No, it’s not-“ Daisy says, but cuts herself off biting her lip. “I trust you with anything, Jem, you know that.”

“But?”

“But it’s your- I assume you heard me.”

“My husband.”

Daisy nods. She’s still staring at the bunk above her, not moving from where she’s laying, flat on her back. “I woke up the whole Zephyr having a nightmare about your dead husband,” she says to herself. “What has our life come to?”

Simmons can’t even laugh about it. It’s meant to be a wry quip, and Simmons is meant to smile ruefully but with affection, because they’re going to get that dead husband back and things are going to be fine. Simmons is a smart woman but she still has hope for the future. (Her mind is racing with blueprints and ways to make a soundproof wall work. Running equations. Simmons had two PhDs by the time she was seventeen and there hasn’t been a day since that she hasn’t used them.) Simmons is a smart woman and hopes—no, she _knows_ that they’ll find Fitz.

But—but— why is this so _hard_?

The point is, she doesn’t laugh at Daisy’s little joke. Doesn’t even smile. And she feels bad about that, because she’s _Jemma_ , she’s always there to be a shoulder to lean on, she laughs at all the jokes. She’s _Jemma_ , so she’s reliable, and a comfort for the team. She and Fitz are both geniuses and they both used to take turns dumbing down science to explain it to the rest of the team, but Simmons has always been the most articulate so she’s taken the responsibility onto herself by now, really. She’s _Jemma_. She’s supposed to give that rueful smile.

She doesn’t laugh at Daisy’s little joke and she feels bad because really, she shouldn’t defend Fitz for what he did, and Daisy is in the right for being pissed off, but he is—was—is?— her husband and she can’t just let him face this on his own.

(He’s dead, some part of her whispers. She doesn’t have to defend him from anything anymore.)

(But Simmons is a smart woman and what she says, goes. Simmons is a smart woman and she’ll bend the world to her will, dammit, she’s always had too much ambition for her own good, she’ll get her husband from space and bring him home and marry him again.)

“I’m sorry,” Daisy says through a sigh. “That was uncalled for.”

Simmons shakes her head. “It’s fine,” she says. “I get it. What he did—“

“I think it really fucked me up,” Daisy says, but she says it like it’s a confession, like it’s something bad. Simmons doesn’t know why. Anyone who went through what Daisy did—having their best friend (and their other best friend’s husband) operate on them while having a breakdown—wouldn’t be okay. That’s understandable. But Daisy says, “Simmons, I don’t know why this hurt me so bad.”

“It’s because it was Fitz,” Simmons says. She squeezes Daisy’s leg. “It was Fitz, not some annoying villain we have to fight all the time. It was Fitz.”

“And it wasn’t Fitz at the same time,” Daisy mutters.

(That’s what Simmons can’t figure out. Was it him? Wasn’t it? It was her Fitz, her husband, doing all those despicable acts. Holding a gun to her own head. But- but- was it _him_?)

Simmons gives up and scoots closer to Daisy, making her scoot over so she has room. She takes Daisy’s hand. “I’m so sorry for what happened,” she says softly. “I never apologized for it.”

“You never have to apologize for something you didn’t do, Jem.”

“But it was my husband. But I never told you that he was wrong to do it back then, and I need to tell you now.”

“ _Was_ he wrong to do it?”

Simmons closes her eyes. “I don’t know,” she says. “But I think I should tell you that anyway.”

“Tell me.”

“He was wrong.”

Daisy smiles. She still won’t look at Simmons. “No, he wasn’t,” she says, and her voice cracks. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t fuck me up.”

“I think we’re all a little fucked up, Daisy,” Simmons says, and she says it the way Daisy made her joke earlier. Daisy gives the rueful smile, because Daisy is a good friend.

“I never even got closure,” Daisy says. “Like, he’s dead. The Fitz we’re trying to get—“

“The Fitz we’re _going_ to get—“

“Right, yeah, but he doesn’t remember any of this. He doesn’t know that he broke down.”

Simmons sighs. “No, he doesn’t,” she says. “He’s still asleep. I’m sure he’s still- he said that he’s been hearing _him_ since the Framework. But if we know ahead of time, we can prevent something like that happening again, hopefully.”

Daisy is still staring at the fucking bunk above her and Simmons wants to yell at her to _look_ , for God’s sake. “We’ll never understand that,” Daisy says. “We never- we were never in the Framework, not really. Not like the rest of the team. Hell, Mack misses a daughter who never existed. May was fucked up as well. Coulson- Coulson had the life he could have had.”

“Maybe we’re lucky for not having that,” Simmons points out. “It’s not something to desire.”

“Definitely not. But it means we’ll never understand them.”

“I’ve never understood Fitz. I’ve always cared about him, but I’ve never understood him.”

“Simmons, you know him better than anyone else.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been good at people in general.” Simmons looks directly at Daisy. Daisy does not. “I tend to treat them like problems that need to be solved.”

“Is that what this is? Solving me?”

“If you like. Or I can make it much more personal and emotional and act like a person for you.”

“That’s okay.”

Simmons puts her hand on Daisy’s cheek. It’s far too personal, considering what Simmons just said, so she moves it away again. But it does the trick. Daisy looks at her. Her eyes are red and bleary and her face has tear trails running down it and she looks just as bad as she did after Lincoln died, but with longer hair and an older face.

“Stay with me for the night,” Daisy says.

Simmons says, “Okay.”

* * *

(She sleeps in Daisy’s room that night and neither of them talk about it ever again. Until Daisy wakes up with another nightmare. Then the cycle repeats.) 

* * *

The search is slow. They go to Cygnus first, because God knows Enoch talked about Cygnus enough, but he isn’t there. There’s a broken ship instead.

That night, Simmons has a dream.

Fitz is in a body bag and everything is blue and dark. Muted. That’s the word. Simmons is walking around—maybe she’s floating—and people are all around her but she passes through them like a ghost. Fitz is the one who’s dead but she’s still a ghost. 

She sits down on a step far enough away from the body bag that she can pretend it isn’t there. She spins her wedding ring around her finger. Daisy sits down beside her and says something to her but Simmons doesn’t hear him.

(Simmons knows somewhere what Daisy said, anyway. She remembers. This isn’t a dream; this is a memory. Daisy told her that he had Fitz’s ring and that Simmons should take it, and he told her that he always loves her and wants to help in any way he can. Daisy gets no response.)

Daisy hands Simmons Fitz’s ring. Simmons feels Fitz’s breath on the back of her neck and she shivers. Simmons feels Fitz’s fingers between her own so she squeezes and her fingernails dig into her palm. She feels the too-warm band in her hand. 

She stands up to leave because no one is talking to her. (Daisy is talking to her but Simmons doesn’t want to listen to him. Not today. Simmons loves Daisy more than she loves herself—she loves everyone more than she loves herself, even though she’s fairly bad at loving—but she can’t hear from him today.) Simmons stands up to leave and she sees Coulson in a red shirt, touching the body bag. 

Simmons is in a black shirt and Coulson is in a red one. She thinks that would mean something if she spent time learning about art instead of science. Coulson walks over to her.

“He’s out there, isn’t he?” Coulson asks. Even when things are hazy and muted, his voice always rings clear.

Simmons doesn’t know how she finds her voice. “Yes, sir.”

Coulson nods solemnly. “Then get to work.”

Simmons says, voice sturdy, “Yes, sir.”

(It’s the last order he gives her.)

She leaves. She wakes up in her bed and she’s crying and her hands are shaking.

Simmons leaves her room, not bothering to make herself look put together, and she goes wherever her feet take her.

(That’s not really true. Her feet aren’t taking her anyway; she’s walking somewhere and she always knows where she’s going. Her subconscious doesn’t move her feet. This isn’t sleepwalking. Simmons knows where she’s going.)

She knocks on Daisy’s door. Daisy opens the door, rubbing her eyes. “Jem?” she says blearily. Then she sees Simmons and her eyes widen. “Jemma, are you okay? Oh my God, what happened?”

“Cut my hair,” Simmons says. “I just- I need- I need it gone, or something. Cut it.”

Simmons has scissors in her hands. She doesn't remember when she got scissors, but she holds them out to Daisy like a gift. Daisy takes them carefully, not looking away from Simmons’ face.

“How do you want me to cut it?” Daisy asks, far too gently. It’s probably somewhere close to three in the morning. (They’re in space. Time doesn’t matter.) 

Simmons shrugs. “Just a noticeable change,” she says. “Go wild. I don’t care how awful it looks.” Daisy has no room to judge her for this, either. Daisy always makes awful fashion choices when she’s upset. She cut all her hair after her mother died. She dyed it black when Lincoln did. (She pulled both of them off.) This is the longest she’s gone since doing anything drastic, and that’s just because they haven’t had any time to slow down.

Daisy studies her face, reaches out and runs a finger through Simmons’ hair. Simmons does not lean into her hand. “Okay,” Daisy says. “Sit down on my bed. I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

(Simmons watches her hair fall down onto the floor around her. They probably should have gone to a sink, but Daisy doesn’t seem to care. Simmons doesn't even check the mirror before going back to sleep in Daisy’s bed.

In the morning, she checks, and she has bangs that are choppy and messy and just above her eyebrows. She likes them.)

* * *

Simmons has started to realize that most nightmares aren’t nightmares but memories in a red-tinted light. Daisy dreams of hearing Lincoln dying over the comms. Simmons dreams of her shouting match with Mack. Daisy dreams of her mother breaking in her father’s arms. Simmons dreams of a robot built by her husband holding a gun to her head.

One by one, the space team is leaving. Piper and Davis never doubt, no, and Daisy never says a word to make it seem like she doesn’t think Fitz is going to come home, but Simmons knows. Simmons doubts most of all.

She starts spending more of her nights with Daisy. When they talk together, they end up being quieter. The nights go smoother. And it’s nice to share with someone again.

You know, Simmons spent one night in a bed with her husband. Their wedding night. After that it was camping out in the lab, sleeping on couches propped outside the medstation, curled together, barely fitting. After that, Fitz was in a cell. After that, they were invincible. 

She’s sharing a bed with Daisy regularly. They don’t talk about it. (She isn’t married anymore. Does she count as a widow?)

When Piper saw her bangs, she gasped, but in a good way, which made Simmons feel nice. Piper ran to grab scissors after examining the haircut and trimmed off split ends to make sure they looked straight and good. Daisy joked about Piper not finding her work good enough. It was nice.

Being in space is nice, really. It’s interesting. There’s so much to learn and there’s so much time for Simmons to research the world and figure out everything about it. Simmons would love to pause time for a million years just so she could learn everything there is to learn before unpausing it again to live her life. There just aren’t enough hours in a day and not enough days in a year for her to figure out everything she wants to.

Simmons likes space. She wants to pause time to learn so that when she unpauses, her husband—fiancé—no, wait, they aren’t even engaged yet, her _boyfriend_ —hasn’t been alone any longer. She feels bad for that, because if the shoe were on the other foot, Fitz wouldn’t have paused to learn any information not necessary to bring her home. _When_ the shoe was on the other foot. That already happened.

(He might be dead. Is he dead? What if he’s been dead the whole time and Simmons has no idea? What if Simmons is looking for a corpse? What if Leo Fitz is dead, and the other Leo Fitz is dead, and there isn’t any of him left except for the messy memories and love that spills out of Simmons’ mouth and fingertips sometimes, when she forgets to clip nails?)

(He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead. Simmons isn’t storing all her love for nothing. Simmons has a limited supply of love; she isn’t wasting any of it on a dead man. She knows he’s out there. Simmons is a smart woman.)

* * *

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be in love with anyone again,” Daisy says one night. Simmons has her head on Daisy’s chest. It’s a little too close for comfort but they’ve gotten good at not-talking about the obvious. 

Simmons sighs. “Me neither,” she says.

“It’s just- I think he was it for me,” Daisy says. “Obviously, I’ve had things here and there with people since. I was- I was a _mess_ after he died. I wasn’t- I mean, you know.”

“I do.”

“I’m not proud of it,” Daisy says quickly. “Of who I was after him. But the point is—I’m never going to love someone like I loved Lincoln again. I don’t know how I’ll ever get over him.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to get over someone like him,” Simmons says. “Moving on isn’t bad. You’re allowed to fall in love again, Dais, and I think he would want you to. But that doesn’t mean you’ll ever get over him.”

Daisy says, “You know, the Fitz we’re going to find isn’t going to be the same Fitz we got used to after the future.” And Simmons’ breath catches, because the _confidence_ in Daisy’s voice, like she’s never doubted for a moment that they’ll get him back. But she also squeezes her eyes shut because of course it isn’t going to be the same Fitz.

“I know.”

“He’s—he won’t remember any of that. I don’t know if he’s still dealing with the whole _personality_ thing-“

“He most likely will be-“

“But he didn’t- he didn’t _break_. Not the way he-“

“I know.”

“And he’ll never have to apologize for it.”

“I think he will anyway.”

Daisy shakes her head. “Maybe three years ago, he would have,” she says. “Maybe before you were sucked through a rock into space. Maybe before he almost drowned.”

“You underestimate him.”

“He operated on me without my consent! That was _him_!”

It’s a strange conversation because it’s charged with an emotion Simmons doesn’t know how to name but Daisy still has her hand running through Simmons’ hair.

Simmons sits up to fix that problem. “I’m sorry,” she says. “You know. You know I don’t-“

“I know.”

Simmons is looking right at her, and Daisy is looking at Simmons’ mouth. It’s late and everyone else is asleep. There’s no window in Daisy’s room but Simmons wishes there was because she would love to kiss someone in the light of the stars.

Simmons kisses her anyway.

(See, they’re both in love with someone who’s dead, and they’ve both always been a little in love with each other. Simmons has a chance to get the man she loves back; Daisy doesn’t. Simmons doesn’t know what Daisy is thinking.)

Simmons kisses her, and Daisy kisses her back, and it isn’t like some of their kisses before (setting the world on fire) and it isn’t like others, either (the only part of the world that _isn’t_ on fire). It’s not peaceful, but it’s not angry. 

Of course Jemma Simmons loves Daisy Johnson. That’s not the question here. Simmons has always loved Daisy since she joined the group as a woman named Skye and she’ll always love her. She’s pretty sure that the feeling is reciprocated. The problem is that the world will always change around them, even if that love is the same.

Simmons isn’t in love with Daisy, but she loves her just the same. Daisy bites down on her lip. Simmons tastes blood.

* * *

In the dream, Simmons is talking to Coulson again. She dreams about this a lot. “He’s out there, isn’t he?” Coulson asks her. She replies, “Yes, sir.”

His last order to her. “Then get to work.” She replies, “Yes, sir.”

Then she’s on the Zephyr again and Coulson is sitting with her. He’s still in that red shirt. “What do you think we do next?” he asks.

Simmons shrugs and her hands are shaking. “I don’t know anymore,” she says. “Follow the leads. Every last trail.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. C’mon, Dr. Simmons. I was the leader but I always relied on my team for the answers.”

“I can’t.”

“Just do your best.” Coulson smiles. Coulson smiled a lot when he was alive, so that meant a lot of his smiles weren’t genuine. But Simmons treats people like problems that need to be solved. She knows when he’s happy. This smile is a proud one.

Simmons isn’t proud. “What if this is my best?” she asks, raising her voice. “What if, after all this time, this is all I’m capable of doing?”

“Simmons-“

Simmons stands up from the seat she was sitting in—was she piloting the Zephyr? she doesn’t know how to fly—and throws her headset down. “What if this is all I’ve got, Director?” And she shouts that at the top of her lungs. “I’ve searched and I’ve searched and the only location I know of any Leo Fitz is where he’s buried back on earth.”

Coulson doesn’t say anything. He looks at her. Simmons thinks she might be crying.

“Coulson, he found me,” she says. She’s yelling into the air, yelling at Coulson, yelling at fate, too. “He _found_ me, against all the odds. He brought me _home_. And when I almost went back, he took my place. How the hell do I compare to a love like that?”

“You don’t,” Coulson says.

Simmons throws her hands in the air. “Well, then what the _fuck_ am I supposed to do now?”

“That’s what I was just asking you, wasn’t it?”

The world isn’t ending anymore but they’re in space and everything is falling apart. Daisy is falling apart. Fitz is probably dead. Simmons is alone and has to keep standing on her own two feet like she isn’t seconds from toppling over.

Slowly, Simmons sinks back into the seat. She scrubs at her cheeks. “What if this is my best?” she asks again. “ _Do your best, Simmons_. What if this is all I’ve got and it isn’t enough?”

“It will be.”

“But what if it _isn’t_?”

“Find another way. Pool your resources. Gather your assets.”

“You’ve never believed in no-win scenarios.”

“Use that big brain of yours, Simmons,” Coulson says. He doesn't move from his seat. This is a dream; this isn’t a memory. “Cheat, if you have to. Win the game. Go home.”

“I don’t even know where home is anymore. All the safe places keep falling apart.”

Coulson gestures his head to the door. Somehow, Simmons knows he’s talking about Daisy. Talking about Fitz, and May, and Mack, and Elena. The team. The family. 

“You’re going to be good enough,” Coulson says. “Your best is good enough.”

Simmons twists her wedding ring around her finger. She’s started wearing it around a necklace lately, but sometimes she needs a reminder that it’s there. “I miss you so much,” she says softly. “Coulson, we all miss you so much.”

Coulson smiles again. “Helping you grow was the best part of my life,” he says.

Simmons sobs into her hands. Coulson doesn’t get up to comfort her and she doesn’t go looking for it. This is a dream. She never had this happen to her and she never will.

* * *

When she wakes up, Daisy has their arms around her. Daisy is known the world—no, known the _galaxy_ round as Quake, the Destroyer of Worlds, as someone not to be messed with. And Jemma Simmons just woke up in their arms.

“You okay?” Daisy says blearily. They sound half asleep. “You sounded like you were dreaming about something.”

Simmons nods. I’ll be okay,” she says.

“Good,” Daisy says. “Fitz needs you to be your best.”

“Oh, just Fitz?”

“Well, I would appreciate it if my number one scientist knows what she was doing when I need her the most.”

Simmons smiles. She reaches up and wipes her eyes. She’s okay. “I’m working on it, Dais,” she says.

Daisy smiles back at her. “I know,” they say. 

* * *

(The next time they go to a store, Daisy steals blue hair dye and asks Simmons to put it in for her.)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! pls pls pls leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed and come talk to me about aos on twitter @lcvelaces :)
> 
> update: this fic has ART!!! please go look at it [here](https://twitter.com/catalystpaladin/status/1355920760049717250?s=21) it makes me crazy :]


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